JOURNEY OF LIFE

The Qur'an mentions that all life originated from water
(Qur'an 21:30)

Origin of Life

Man himself is "created" of water and so are all the animals on earth (Qur'an 25:54, and 24:45). Now these statements to an Arab would have sounded atrocious in that day and age. Even today such statements in the Qur'an might cause you to wonder if scientific facts about them are unknown. The fact that all life originated in water is well established by the scientific community today. They have evidence to support the fact that the first living beings were algae, and they existed in water. The fact that human beings and animals are created of water is also well established since cytoplasm the basic component of "life" in any animal cell is over 80% water.

The Female Bee

The Qur'an mentions the bee, which leaves its home in search for food, in the verses that discuss honey (Qur'an 16:68, 69). It uses the feminine verb to describe the bee, in Arabic faslukee. This, to the Arab, suggests that the bee, which leaves its home in search for food, is female. Does anyone except an expert know how to differentiate between a male and a female bee? Even today, let alone Prophet Muhammad's(PBUH) time, 1400 plus years ago, we need a specialist to differentiate between a male and a female bee. The Qur'an is accurate when it mentions that the female bee leaves its home in search for food; the males never leave their homes for food, it is the females who have to feed them.

Embryology

The Qur'an says that the "ejaculated drop" determines the sex of a human baby (Qur'an 53:45). It is common knowledge that semen is the fluid that is ejaculated by males during sexual acts. Females do not possess such "ejaculated semen."
The sex of the baby, whether it is male or female, will indeed be determined by the 'ejaculated drop', i.e. the father's sperm, as mentioned by the Qur'an It has been scientifically established only recently that the female ovum contains only X-chromosomes. If the ejaculated drop, the father's sperm bears the Y chromosome, the offspring will be male, and otherwise the offspring will be female. No one living at the time of Prophet Muhammad(PBUH) or even Darwin for that matter had any knowledge of such genetics foretold centuries earlier in the Qur'an.

Origin of the Universe

The Qur'an mentions that the universe originated, at a stage, from a "gaseous material." (Qur'an 41:11). It uses the Arabic word Dukhan, which stands for smoke. A perfect analogy for gas and particles in suspension and the gasses being hot.
Scientists have only very recently confirmed that the universe did indeed originate from a gaseous mass composed of hydrogen and helium, a big mass of hot gasses, a mass over 300,000 times that of the earth. That mass then fragmented to form galaxies. Prophet Muhammad(PBUH), who had no schooling of any kind and was unlettered all his life, could not have possibly known this.

The life of Muhammad(SAW) the Messenger of Allah(SWT) is rich and full of lessons. It has been so well documented and so much has been written about his life over the centuries that another attempt is almost unnecessary. However, I decided to write this for two reasons: to make the lessons from the life of Rasoolullah(SAW) relating specifically to leadership easily accessible to the seeker, whether Muslim or not; and to make an attempt to see how these lessons are applicable today in a world that is in principle, very similar to the world he lived in.